Inspired by a “friend-zoned” post. There’s a serious failure mode in society where guys are not taught how to attract females in any formalized way. Seems most decent guys have to go through *years* being the idiot portrayed in this XKCD (I know I did), and women have to go through years of being surrounded by idiots or assholes. I haven’t interviewed any older folks on this (maybe I’ll ask my parents next time I visit them), but did they not know we’d need these skills when we were growing up? Or was this just one of those things you aren’t allowed to talk about?

The PUA community was almost on the right track, but they end up just turning idiots into assholes (unless the guys are very picky and ignore all the shit advice about treating women as commodities). This should not be a hard problem to fix. We already have a “Sex Ed class”. Currently it would more accurately be called a Biology of Human Reproduction class, as it’s primarily a biology lesson with the only useful thing taught being that condoms are great (and many states are trying to strip THAT out!). Why not include some education about *actual* sex, and how to be an attractive mate? The basics are well known. The alternative is that kids continue to get their education for their current teachers – Hollywood Romantic Comedies and Porn. Those are both Kabuki Theater that have no bearing on real life, and it can take a loooooong time for people to figure that out via trial-and-error.

Seriously, I had to learn the capitals of all 50 States. Quite a lot of time was wasted on that useless knowledge, it was integrated into other subjects (our music class had a song for it), and I’ll wager most schools still teach this. Cut that crap out and use the time for something useful that will improve everyone’s quality of life.